The Sims 4 System Requirements

To run the Sims 4 system requirements, you will need an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics card, an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 CPU, and 20GB of HD space.

The Sims 4 system requirements are very accessible, so you should be able to run the game on most modern PCs and laptops. The cheapest graphics card you can play it on is an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO. But, according to the developers, the recommended graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650.

To play The Sims 4 you will need a minimum CPU equivalent to an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600. Whereas, an Intel Core i5-4460T is recommended in order to run it. The minimum memory requirement to meet The Sims 4 specs is 2 GB of RAM, but the developers recommend 4 GB. In terms of game file size, you will need at least 20 GB of free space available on your hard drive or the best gaming SSD.

Sims 4 Steam

EA recently released a Sims 4 Steam edition, meaning fans of Valve's storefront can now play the game on their platform of choice. If you've got an Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription, you'll also be able to play the game using EA Pass. Of course, the game is also available through EA Origin, but an Epic Game Store release has yet to be announced.

As of October 2022, EA and Maxus made The Sims 4 free - it was a massive day for fans of the game. If you are new to the title, then check this updated list of The Sims 4 cheats to get free money and this Sims 4 CC guide for the latest custom content.

The Sims 4 update

A free Sims 4 update called Dark & Lovely released in April 2024, and brought 24 color combinations to two existing hairstyles. Additional hairstyles are due to be introduced to complement the Dark & Lovely update, but the extra hairstyles won't launch until July 2024. As Sims updates go, this latest update was fairly small, and is the result of the developer's desire to expand on the game's inclusivity. 

The Sims 4 Performance Guide

As the game has pretty low requirements, if anyone ever asks "Can you play Sims 4 on a laptop" then the answer is most likely yes. The game's system requirements also remain the same for The Sims 4 expansion packs. Suffering from low FPS of other performance issues in Sims 4? Here are some things you can try.

• Turning down anti-aliasing should give you a decent performance boost, as will turning down the resolution and shutting any background programs to free up processing and memory power.
• As with all games make sure you have the latest graphics cards drivers installed.

The Sims 4 DLC

The Sims 4, much like its predecessors, has a huge amount of additional content ready to expand your experience beyond the base game.

We're looking forward to news on the The Sims 5 release date, and here are our best guesses at The Sims 5 system requirements. And while you wait check our list of the best games like the Sims.

The Sims 4 will run on PC system with Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 and upwards. Additionally it has a Mac version.

Looking for an upgrade? Try our easy to use The Sims 4 set up guides to find the best cards. Filter for The Sims 4 graphics card comparison and CPU compare. We'll help you find the best deal for the right gear to run the game.

The Sims 4 FPS - what frame rate can you expect?

How many FPS will I get on The Sims 4? We reference thousands of reports from PCGameBenchmark users running our FPS tracking app to tell you exactly how The Sims 4 performs across a range of different settings and resolutions on the most popular PC gaming setups.

What frame rate does The Sims 4 run at?

Here are the typical frame rate samples

Avg FPS	CPU	GPU	RAM
163	Intel Core i9-14900KF	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	64 GB
142	Intel Core i7-9700	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti	16 GB
72	Intel Core i5-8350U	Intel UHD Graphics 620	16 GB
46	Intel Core i7-5820K	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070	32 GB
45	Intel Core i7-6950X	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070	32 GB

What frame rate does The Sims 4 run at? Check our FPS Calculator

Are you experiencing The Sims 4 FPS drops and stutters? Want to know exactly how the game performs on your system? You can get a free easy FPS test for all your games using the PCGameBenchmark FPS monitor tool - your first step to understanding how the parts in your gaming PC are actually performing in real-world conditions.